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The Wine and Cheese Place in Clayton will be holding their Third Annual Beerfest on April 4th from 1PM-4PM. Past festivals have featured over 100 beers to taste, so I’m sure this year’s festival will not disappoint. Here’s a preliminary list of beers that have been confirmed for the festival:

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Well, the New Year is upon us and what’s a new year without making some sort of list. Rather than try and concentrate on a list of resolutions (because those always seem to fail) I’m going to make a list of things I’d like to see in the upcoming year in St. Louis.

Better Beer in Better Restaurants
Sure I’m going to sound like a broken record on this one, but why do some of the best restaurants in town have some of the lousiest selections of beer? In my mind there are about 4 or 5 upper tier restaurants in the St. Louis area and only two of them have above average selections. You put so much effort into your food, wine and even coffee, but then continue the same beer that I can get at a local chain restaurant. For the record, the beer selection at probably the best restaurant in town, Niche, is much improved.

New Breweries Available in the Area
I know a lot of people would like to see Dogfish Head, Three Floyds or Founder’s in St. Louis, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal to drive across the river and pick up these beers. Personally, I would prefer seeing breweries that we can’t already get in the Metro area into St. Louis. Sure it would be nice to get something like Stone, but what about something like Oskar Blues, Green Flash or Great Lakes in Missouri as well?

More Homebrewing!
My attempt to brew 30 different beers last year didn’t quite pan out as well as I would have liked, but with a new brewing system on the horizon I’m looking to put in a ton of brewing time in the upcoming year. But I’d also like to see more homebrewing from some of the craft beer nerds in the area. It’s a relatively cheap hobby to start up and it gives you the satisfaction of brewing your own beer.

A New Festival Beer For the Heritage Festival
This is obviously a request if the festival happens next year, but enough of the Dark Lager. Enough. You have a lot of really talented and exciting brewers in the area, let them stretch their wings and try something different.

More People Drinking Craft Beer
This one is up to us to make happen. I think the InBev/AB deal really helped our cause a bit locally, but this is something we need to set down and try to make happen. We need to have our friends and family try new and different beers and make them realize that drinking a light American lager doesn’t make you a fan of “beer” it makes you a fan of light American lagers.